


Blink Twice if You're Dead

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Humor, Gen, this is sort of an apology for Lonely, tho tbh i wouldnt put it past lyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 09:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17640593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: 14: “I would kill everyone on earth if it meant my dog would live. Don’t test me.”





	Blink Twice if You're Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hinotorihime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotorihime/gifts).



> alex: here have these menacing and terrifying abominations  
> me: ...its free real estate
> 
> Working Title: _MISTER pubby..._

Sasha isn’t quite sure how she ended up with the weird dog-thing in her lap, flickering contentedly, but she’s pretty happy about the whole thing. She had a dog when she was younger, a mangy thing that drooled constantly and yipped whenever someone was getting too close to her. 

Sasha _thought_ she knew how to pet dogs, but the dog-thing is proving her wrong. It doesn’t have ears so much as weird flaps, and whenever she tries to stroke its head, the dog-thing vanishes and reappears a few inches away. It doesn’t leave Sasha’s lap though.

“Oh my _god,”_ shrieks Einstein, and Sasha’s dog-thing growls softly. She baps it gently between the shoulders (shoulders?) with her palm, and it settles back down again. Azu shushes him, but Einstein goes on, “Look, I know it’s dangerous to be loud, but _ow!_ And now she’s just got it on her lap like its a puppy? It almost _killed_ me! Okay, sure, that’s totally fine! God!” Sasha pokes one of the flaps on her dog-thing’s head, and it makes a weird noise.

She _thinks_ it’s a happy noise. It doesn’t bite her, or flicker, or anything, so it’s probably a happy noise.

Hamid, from a safe distance away, says, “Sasha, maybe you shouldn’t be so close to that thing.” Sasha pokes the flap on the left, and her dog-thing makes the weird noise again. It’s kind of like Mr Ceiling when he was glitching and distorting all of his words so bad they were just hollow sounds. Hamid takes a step back at the noise.

Sasha squints at her dog-thing. Because it is _her_ dog-thing, now, she’s made up her mind. It squints back, eyes closing contentedly. “His name is Bits,” she informs them. Hamid blanches. Einstein stares. Azu furrows her brow in concern.

Azu starts, “Sasha, I don’t think that’s a good idea...” but she trails off, biting her lip worriedly. 

Hamid tries, “This didn’t go too well the last time.” Sasha shrugs and finds a portion of Bits’ shoulder to scratch that gets him to make that same glitchy howl noise. 

Sure, the last enemy-dog-turned-pet didn’t end well, but that was Brutor. And the only thing stupider than Brutor was the person in charge of him. Sasha’s pretty smart, and she knows that Bits is, too. Bits is a good dog-thing. And he’s pretty good in a fight, unlike Brutor.

Einstein shouts, “ARE YOU _CRAZY?!”_

Bits makes a weird glitchy growl. Sasha baps him again and says, “Calm down, he’s just loud.” Bits looks up at her, and then he huffs and lays his head back down. The growling stops. “See?” Einstein continues to stare at her incredulously. “He can learn. He’s a smart dog-thing.”

Hamid looks like he’s about to argue, but then he sighs. “Okay,” he says — Einstein splutters vaguely. Hamid placates, “She’s made up her mind. If it bites her, it bites her, and she can deal with that herself.”

“What if it bites one of us?” Azu asks.

Sasha stretches her hand out in front of Bits’ mouth. Bits sniffs (at least, Sasha thinks that’s what he’s doing) it, huffs again, and plops his chin on top of it. “He won’t,” she says, “Bits is a good dog-thing. And if not, we killed two of them. One more should be pretty easy, now that we know how to do it.”

(Sasha doesn’t mention that she’s not going to kill Bits. She likes him too much already. He’s a good dog-thing.)

///

They’re bloody and bruised, and Bits has Hamid’s little brother on his back. Topaz is carrying Azu’s brother, Mr Gusset, and Grizzop’s… whatever-they-are, while Azu drags Einstein along. He’s too worn-out to teleport all of them, so they get to walk halfway back until he’s rested up again. Well. “Walk”. They’re _trudging,_ at best.

“What happened?” Hamid asks Ishak when they’re sat around a low campfire. Bits is curled into Sasha’s lap, with Mr Gusset using him as a pillow. 

Ishak shrugs. In a voice that’s more unsure than Sasha could expect even from someone related to Hamid, he stammers, “I didn’t want anyone to die. And he—” Ishak wraps his arms around his shoulders— “he got hit with more magic than I thought he would. And then he. He didn’t. He didn’t get up.” His voice breaks and Sasha squeezes her eyes shut. 

She hears the rustling of Hamid’s fancy clothes, and then she hears a tiny kid sobbing into his big brother’s arms. “I didn’t mean it,” Ishak says, and Hamid shushes him. “I didn’t mean it!” Sasha can’t help but wonder how many people she'd already killed at Ishak's age.

“I know,” Hamid whispers comfortingly, “it’s okay. You didn’t mean it. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

Bits howls in his sleep and Sasha brushes her dog-thing’s ear-flap. She doesn’t get much sleep herself.

///

Einstein can’t teleport eight people and a dog-thing in one trip until they’re out of Rome. So they walk.

“That’s a blink dog,” remarks the goblin. Sasha thinks their name is Indrak. They sliced their way out of the ropes that held them and tried to get everyone to safety. “It’s incredibly deadly.” They twirl twin sickles around their hands absent-mindedly with a grace that Sasha admires.

Sasha answers, “His name is Bits. He’s my dog-thing. I’m pretty deadly, too.” Indrak nods. They sheathe the sickles in their belt and poke Bits in the ear-flap. He flickers happily. Sasha catches a bit of a sharp-toothed smile on Indrak’s face.

...Sasha thinks she can see why Grizzop took to her so fast.

///

Bits doesn’t stop howling. “He’s going to get us noticed, and then we’re all going to die!” Einstein panics. Mr Gusset sets a hand over his mouth.

Mr Gusset hisses, _“I think something is coming.”_

And then something appears. The black-hooded figure makes a terrifying noise as it lurches towards them. Bits lunges forward and bites the Cultist in the face. 

And then more of them appear, from all around, each making awful noises.

Hamid and Ishak let loose a volley of magic so bright it scorches Sasha’s vision. Azu swings her axe down with a sharp ferocity as Emeka hits so hard the squizards and blokes alike make snapping noises as his fists connect. Mr Gusset drags Einstein away from the melee, every so often flicking a small stone into the back of a black hood and beaming when it explodes in a concentrated concussive blast. Indrak and Sasha twist around each other, each slashing through robes. Sasha stabs where kidneys ought to be as Bits bites off portions of tentacles and faces and hands, and she hears Indrak laughing with a manic glee that’s more than a little infectious.

When the Cultists of Hades stop coming, Sasha levels a finger at Einstein. “I _told_ you,” she pants, “I _told_ you Bits was a good dog-thing.”

///

They have too many nights to go before they’ll be out of Rome. Sasha can’t sleep. She does a good job at faking it, though, resting her head on Mr Gusset’s and closing her eyes. 

Azu says, “You’ve gotten taller.”  
“You shaved your head.”  
“Yes.”  
“...it looks good.”

Azu and Emeka don’t say anything that Sasha understands after that, but they keep talking. Catching up on things, probably. Sasha’s never heard Azu be this quiet. She doesn’t interrupt them.

///

Mr Gusset scolds her for being so stupid as to try to come and get him, but he gives her a hug anyway. It’s far nicer than any of the hugs Sasha’s gotten for a long time.

///

Sasha and Indrak (and Bits) are scouting ahead, making sure it’s safe for everyone else to continue when Sasha asks, “How do you know Grizzop, anyway?” 

Indrak shrugs. “Just do,” they say, and Sasha squints. Indrak looks up at her. “How do _you_ know him? And, like, sorry I haven’t asked ‘til now, but what’s your name?” Sasha turns back to look at the weird-desert.

“Sasha Rackett. He insulted me when I was trying to de-spine a zombie, and then we saved the world together. He’s pretty alright.”

Indrak snorts a laugh. They stick out (and up) a hand and say, “Indrak drik Negen Amsterdam. Sounds like him.” Sasha smiles awkwardly back and shakes the hand. Bits growls at something. Indrak has their sickles out a split second after Sasha’s daggers flick out of her wristguards. “Should we get the others?” Indrak asks, looking ready for a fight.

“Nah,” Sasha answers, “we’re pretty damn good at this. We'll be fine.”

Indrak grins; their teeth are far sharper than any Sasha's seen before. “Y’know, Sasha Rackett, I think I can see why Grizzop likes you.”

///

Grizzop stares, slack-jawed. The river rushes by them, blocking out a lot of noise. Sasha thinks it’s blocking out Grizzop’s voice, too, but then she realises he’s just trying to find the right words. _“WHY THE HELL DO YOU HAVE A BLINK DOG?”_ he screeches at the top of his tiny lungs, and it puts the river’s volume to shame.

Sasha shrugs and scratches Bits between the shoulders. “His name is Bits,” she says calmly. It’s not the answer to the question that Grizzop asked, but it’s more important.

Grizzop, ears pointing straight up in confusion and suspicion and more than a little indignation, splutters vaguely.

Einstein, freshly healed by the power of Aphrodite, chimes in, “I know, right? That’s what I said!”

///

Einstein refuses to teleport them ‘ever again! I mean, really, you think that it’s just a few favours and then all of the sudden you’re in Rome and there’s a freaky dog-thing stealing your flesh to put in a weird teleportation dimension! Ugh!’ so they end up finding a ship to take them to Svalbard.

Bits stays in his weird teleportation dimension until Sasha’s alone in her bunk below decks. She snaps her fingers and calls, “Bits.” But he doesn’t come. She frowns and snaps again; they _practised_ this. _“Bits,”_ she says again.

Nothing.

Sasha frowns. And then she hears a faint shout a few doors down. She stifles a laugh.

“Bits, wrong room.”

Bits makes the glitchy noise that means he’s happy. She spins around and grins at him. She kneels in front of the bunk and scratches behind his ear-flap. “Good boy,” she praises, “good blink dog. I’m gonna teach you to do diversions, next.” He rolls over onto his back and flickers a bit. Sasha waits until he’s solid before rubbing his belly. The last time she tried to pet him when he was flickering, her hand got stuck in his spine. It was the most uncomfortable Sasha’s ever been.

Azu opens the door. “Sasha,” she says, and her face is very pale, “please don’t send Bits into my room without warning me first.” Bits barks delightedly. Azu takes a worried step back into the corridor.

Sasha hides her smile. “Sorry,” she says, “I’m trying to teach him to blink to me on command.” Azu nods, looking a bit concerned. Bits blinks in front of her and jumps up, trying to lick her face. Azu exclaims loudly in shock; Sasha bursts out laughing. “Bits,” she manages, and he turns to look at her expectantly. She snaps, and he blinks back to the bed, long tail lashing behind him. Azu closes the door with a _bang_ and Sasha can barely hear her walking quickly back to her own room over Sasha’s own giggling.

///

Sasha’s having trouble with the lock. She knows that there are guards coming, but one of her picks keeps getting stuck on the third tumbler, and she _can’t quite get it._ “There are guards coming,” Hamid Messages unhelpfully from outside of the building, and Sasha swears. The lock resets _once again,_ and Sasha barely keeps herself from punching the door. She listens carefully, and when she doesn’t hear any footsteps, she snaps her fingers. Bits blinks right next to her, ear-flaps laid flat against his head. He doesn’t make a sound, because Sasha’s trained him well, and because he’s a good dog-thing.

Sasha holds a palm out flat and mouths, _“Distract,”_ and Bits presses his head against her hand. They’ve practised this. When he pulls away, she snaps again, and he blinks away. There’s a beat. Sasha hears her blink dog giving a staticky, distorted howl from the other side of the building. She can’t help but smile as she sets to work on the lock again. She’s a proper blink-dog-whisperer.

///

Grizzop’s ear flicks up in amusement as Sasha scritches her blink dog behind the ear-flaps. Sasha, a bit drunk, smiles at him. Hamid, a lot drunk, is sprawled across Azu’s lap with his leg draped over Sasha’s. Grizzop’s mouth ticks up on the same side as his ear as he says, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you liked that dog more than you like any of us.” Bits yawns. Sasha nudges Grizzop with her foot.

“S’cause I do,” she mumbles, “I’d kill everyone on Earth if it meant my dog-thing would live.” Grizzop laughs at that, and she nudges him again. “Don’t test me,” she warns through a grin, and he grins back.

Grizzop ends up joining the makeshift cuddle pile, slotting himself under Azu’s arm and next to Sasha’s shoulder, and he only complains a little bit about Hamid’s leg on top of him. Bits huffs contentedly and pushes his snout against Grizzop’s knee. Grizzop yelps at the cold, but it’s too late, now. He’s stuck between a paladin, an antiques appraiser, a sorcerer, and a blink dog who don’t plan on letting him move any time soon.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @roswell-the-wrongdoer come check me out and send me some prompts. (i love you.)


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